This study focuses on testing for the existence of an urban rat race within urban South
Africa by investigating the relationship between agglomeration and hours worked in the
South African labour market. This dissertation follows the work of Rosenthal and
Strange (2002), who find evidence that industrious professionals are drawn to
agglomerated areas and that agglomeration increases the amount of hours worked,
thus supporting Akerlof?s (1976) theory of the urban rat race. Using cross–sectional data
from the September 2007 Quarterly Labour Force Survey, Ordinary Least Squares
(OLS) regressions were run using the log of hours worked as dependent variable and
different worker attributes, dummy variables and agglomeration variables as
explanatory variables in order to establish a relationship between agglomeration and
hours worked in the urban areas of South Africa. Findings from the empirical analysis
yield atypical results concerning the relationship between worker characteristics,
agglomeration and hours worked in South Africa. Overall, results indicate that a workspreading
effect occurs amongst professional workers, whilst non–professional workers
appear to work the longest hours in South Africa.